If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon. — Better, if ye were not, or, became not. Here the “true riches” stand in contrast with the vain, deceitful, unrighteous mammon, and answer to the true spiritual wealth of peace, pardon, wisdom, or, in St. Paul’s language, here again coloured by St. Luke’s, the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). Our Lord teaches His disciples, what human religious teachers have so often forgotten, that honesty, integrity, and, as implied in faithfulness, benevolence, in the use of this world’s goods, be our portion small or great, is an indispensable condition of all spiritual advancement.
The Greek word for “true” may be noticed as being that which is generally characteristic of St. John. (See Notes on John 1:9; John 4:23.) This is the only instance of its use in the three first Gospels; St. Paul uses it once (1 Thessalonians 1:9), and then, after companionship with St. Luke. It is found in three passages of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 8:2; Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 9:24; Hebrews 10:22) twenty-three times in the writings of St. John.